The Holiday Round Part 42

"Leave this to me," I said calmly. "Porter!-- PORTER!!--PORTER!!!--Oh, guard, what station's this?"

"Byres, sir."

"Byres?"

"Yes, sir." He blew his whistle and the train went on again.

"At any rate we know now that it WAS Byres," I remarked, when the silence began to get oppressive.

"It's all very well for you," Beatrice burst out indignantly, "but you don't think about Baby. We don't know a bit where we are--"

"That's the one thing we do know," I said. "We're at this little Byres place."

"It was the porter's fault at Liverpool Street," said John consolingly. "He told us it was a through carriage."

"I don't care whose fault it was; I'm only thinking of Baby."

"What time do babies go to bed as a rule?" I asked.

"This one goes at six."

"Well, then, she's got another hour. Now, what would Napoleon have done?"

"Napoleon," said John, after careful thought, "would have turned all your clothes out of your bag, would have put the baby in it diagonally, and have bored holes in the top for ventilation. That's as good as going to bed--you avoid the worst of the evening mists.

And people would only think you kept caterpillars."

Beatrice looked at him coldly.

"That's a way to talk of your daughter," she said in scorn.

"Don't kill him," I begged, "We may want him. Now I've got another idea. If you look out of the window you observe that we are on a SINGLE line."

"Well, I envy it. And, however single it is, we're going away from home in it."

"True. But the point is that no train can come back on it until we've stopped going forward. So, you see, there's no object in getting out of this train until it has finished for the day.

Probably it will go back itself before long, out of sheer boredom.

And it's much better waiting here than on a draughty Byres platform."

Beatrice, quite seeing the point, changed the subject.

"There's my trunk will go on to Brookfield, and the wagonette will meet the train, and as we aren't there it will go away without the trunk, and all baby's things are in it."

"She's not complaining," I said. "She's just mentioning it."

"Look here," said John reproachfully, "we're doing all we can. We're both thinking like anything." He picked up his paper again.

I was beginning to get annoyed. It was, of course, no good to get as anxious and excited as Beatrice; that wouldn't help matters at all.

On the other hand, the entire indifference of John and the baby was equally out of place. It seemed to me that there was a middle and Napoleonic path in between these two extremes which only I was following. To be convinced that one is the only person doing the right thing is always annoying.

"I've just made another discovery," I said in a hurt voice. "There's a map over John's head, if he'd only had the sense to look there before. There we are," and I pointed with my stick; "there's Byres.

The line goes round and round and eventually goes through Dearmer.

We get out at Dearmer, and we're only three miles from Brookfield."

"What they call a loop line," a.s.sisted John, "because it's in the shape of a loop."

"It's not so bad as it might be," admitted Beatrice grudgingly, after studying the map, "but it's five miles home from Dearmer; and what about my trunk?"

I sighed and pulled out a pencil.

"It's very simple. We write a telegram:--

'Stationmaster, Brookfield. Send wagonette and trunk to wait for us at Dearmer Station.'"

"Love to mother and the children," added John.

Our train stopped again. I summoned a porter and gave him the telegram.

"It's so absurdly simple," I repeated, as the train went on. "Just a little presence of mind; that's all."

We got out at Dearmer and gave up our tickets to the porter-station-master-signalman.

"What's this?" he said. "These are no good to me."

"Well, they're no good to us. We've finished with them."

We sat in the waiting-room with him for half an hour and explained the situation. We said that, highly as we thought of Dearmer, we had not wantonly tried to defraud the Company in order to get a sight of the place; and that, so far from owing him three shillings apiece, we were prepared to take a sovereign to say nothing more about it.... And still the wagonette didn't come.

"Is there a post-office here?" I asked the man. "Or a horse?"

"There might be a horse at the 'Lion.' There's no post-office."

"Well, I suppose I could wire to Brookfield Station from here?"

"Not to Brookfield."

"But supposing you want to tell the station-master there that the train's off the line, or that you've won the first prize at the Flower Show in the vegetable cla.s.s, how would you do it?"

"Brookfield's not on this line. That's why you've got to pay three shill--"

"Yes, yes. You said all that. Then I shall go and explore the village."

I explored, as Napoleon would have done, and I came back with a plan.

"There is no horse," I said to my eager audience; "but I have found a bicycle. The landlady of the 'Lion' will be delighted to look after Beatrice and the baby, and will give her tea; John will stay here with the bags in case the wagonette turns up, and I will ride to Brookfield and summon help."

"That's all right," said John, "only I would suggest that _I_ go to the 'Lion' and have tea, and Beatrice and the child--"

We left him in disgust at his selfishness. I established the ladies at the inn, mounted the bicycle, and rode off. It was a windy day, and I had a long coat and a bowler hat. After an extremely unpleasant two miles something drove past me. I lifted up my head and looked round. It was the wagonette.